10 Simple Ways to Increase Instagram Post Engagement with Hashtags
With LinkedIn, Instagram, Twitter, and other platforms all involving hashtags, it’s fair to say they play an important role in the social media world. As a business or marketer, hashtags have great value. This is especially true if you’re currently struggling to get engagement on your posts. In this guide, we’re going to pay particular attention to Instagram and how to boost engagement on this fantastic platform.
Benefits of Using Hashtags on Instagram
For those with little experience, you might be wondering why you should mess around with hashtags in the first place. Some key benefits include:
Audience Interaction
Firstly, it’s widely known that a post with a hashtag is likely to get more engagement than a post without one. This is the reason so many brands always include at least one hashtag with posts — they get results. Users scroll through hashtags, and like to get involved with hashtags themselves.
Content Categorization
By using hashtags, they will essentially split your posts into categories and make them easier for users to find. Many brands spend hours crafting the perfect posts only to let them fight for attention without hashtags. These days, Instagram users interact with hashtags whether it is with the search function or by clicking on a hashtag within a post.
With this in mind, hashtags are like keywords in search engines. With hashtags, you’re almost performing SEO for Instagram. Without hashtags, you’re sending posts into the sea of millions of unseen Instagram posts.
Market Research
Along with using hashtags in posts, we recommend keeping an eye on the hashtags used by your competition. You can see what other brands are using and what customers are using when talking about your brand. Armed with this knowledge, it’s possible to create posts and ad campaigns that resonate with your audience.
Types of Hashtags
Before using hashtags, you should be aware that there are different types that exist. Not every hashtag is born equal and choosing the right type could be the difference between success and failure (or engagement and no engagement) with your posts.
Branded Hashtags
For larger brands, branded hashtags are generated for your company exclusively. While some companies use their name, others go for a slogan, tagline, or the name of a product. With a branded hashtag, you can keep all user-generated content in one place. Some users will tap on the hashtag and view all your posts after liking what they see initially.
Community Hashtags
Community hashtags connect people with similar interests. For example, you might opt for a hashtag that indicates your product type and niche. It doesn’t have to relate to your brand; there has been a sharp rise in the number of hashtags using special events, seasons, locations, acronyms, and emojis. If you run a gym, you might do a #wellnesswednesday or #mondaymotivation campaign.
Campaign Hashtags
As the third option, you might use a campaign hashtag which generally has a shorter life than the previous two options. For businesses, this is an ideal way to generate excitement when launching a new product, expanding into a new area, or running a competition. Around the holiday season, it’s common to do a ’12 Days of X’ campaign relating to a specific industry, for instance.
How to Increase Post Engagement with Hashtags on Instagram
With so much competition and companies fighting for attention, you aren’t guaranteed success just because you add a hashtag or two to your posts. Instead, you need to be clever, so we have some tips below.
1. Look Through the Analytics
When attempting to improve post engagement, you aren’t working from a blank canvas because you probably have previous data to help. Using the analytics tool on Instagram, it’s possible to see the number of people landing on your profile from specific hashtags. One review of this data and you might find a hashtag that outperforms every other that you were unaware of. If so, it’s time to bring this hashtag back to your posts. Simultaneously, drop the hashtags that fail to lead to engagement.
Over time, looking at the analytics is one of the best tricks to have in your arsenal. Drop the hashtags that don’t lead to engagement or profile landings and keep the ones that perform. Eventually, you’ll have a selection of hashtags that work really well.
2. Focus on Quality (Not Quantity!)
Adding a hashtag to a post doesn’t automatically transform a boring post into an interesting one. When creating an Instagram post, all the normal principles apply. This includes:
• Call to action
• High-quality content
• Interesting and engaging content
• Goal-based content
Bonus Tip — Please don’t have every word of your post as a hashtag — not only is it annoying for Instagram users, it’s difficult to read and will not generate results.
3. Use Three to Five Hashtags
Don’t feel the need to fill the screen with blue text, and don’t think you have to just stick with one hashtag per post either. Instagram might allow 30 hashtags, but this isn’t the goal. Find a nice balance between three and five relevant and useful hashtags in each post. Rather than trying to squeeze 15 hashtags into a single post, why not post more frequently and spread the hashtags across these posts?
4. Put Additional Hashtags in the First Comment
To prevent overcrowding in the actual post, one trick that has become popular with brands is to add more hashtags through the comment feature. With some automation tools, there are actually features that allow you to make the first comment on every post with hashtags of your choosing.
5. Always Double Check Spelling and Grammar
If there’s one thing that turns people away from sharing and engaging with content, it’s poor spelling and grammar. Before sharing anything, double-check the spelling (get a second set of eyes to read it, if necessary).
With hashtags, there are even more rules than normal. If you’re blending several words together, feel free to capitalize each word because you cannot add spaces. For those who are sticklers for grammar and cringe when scrolling through Facebook, we have bad news because you can’t put apostrophes and other punctuation marks in your hashtag. But don’t worry, consumers are accustomed to seeing ‘Youre’ and ‘Dont’ in hashtags.
6. Use Location-Based Hashtags
While some companies are small and want to target locals, others have products that work around the globe. Regardless of which you are, location-based hashtags are a great way to go. You can boost your consumer base in particular locations and gain a positive reputation within the community. You could even pair the location-based hashtags with competitions and contests.
7. Take Advantage of the Suggestions
This might sound obvious, but Instagram suggests hashtags when creating a post. You could think up your own, use the ones found during research, or you could also listen to the help Instagram provides with the suggestions. As long as you have one relevant hashtag to start, Hashtag Suggestions will help you with the rest. As before, check each hashtag’s performance in the analytics; you might find a hidden gem through these suggestions alone.
8. Use Hashtags in Stories
Adding hashtags to your Stories will indirectly benefit your posts. By doing this, your content gets more exposure and discovery becomes much easier for brands. If you have your phone nearby, type a hashtag into the search feature and you’ll see a number of Stories with this hashtag. If you can make it into this collection, you’ll get the exposure you desire. Then, if the individual enjoys the content, they may tap through to your profile where they see the rest of your amazing content.
In every Story post, you can add a clickable hashtag sticker, so make sure you choose an important one for this purpose.
9. Keep Clear of Banned Hashtags
Even if you aren’t intending to offend or use Instagram incorrectly, you should be aware of hashtags that seem innocent but are actually banned; the last thing you want is to impact your reputation or waste your effort by using a banned hashtag. We recommend looking through the list of banned hashtags because even #humpday is forbidden.
10. Get Involved
Finally, another way to increase Instagram post engagement is to get involved in the community. Use the trending hashtags, get involved in debates, and take advantage of all three types of hashtags. Start a branded hashtag, use community hashtags, and run competitions (or even simple polls) with campaign hashtags.
Bonus! Free Tool: Trapica Suggest
